The Book of the Flame (working title) Vol 1

Father’s initial fear boiled into one of his rages when he heard her story, though not directed at her this time. Had she not assured him she had suffered no serious hurt he might well have roused the guards or gone down to Neibol himself. Dugei helped for once, pointing out that it was hardly reasonable to send full grown men-at-arms to hunt down a pack of orphan waifs. Father grumbled that he’d never been a little ruffian for lack of parents, but settled down in the end at the idea of her downtrodden antagonists. Remarkably adept at using Father’s words against him, Dugei had become, having learned from Eleihas’ sophistic example. She could almost be proud of the little scamp.

Of course, Father extracted a solemn promise to be more careful on her next trip to the market, a promise Eleihas by no means meant to keep. She jogged the whole way at a steady pace to make sure she’d have time to visit the run-down old neighborhood where she’d been assured Big Kalra could be found. Once in that dingy, dangerous place with its hungry-looking human predators, she nearly repented of her mission, but she almost literally bumped into Kalra before she had time to change her mind.

“You!” he said, rounding on the tall, bruised girl who burst suddenly on his circle of cronies.

“Me!” she said, dancing out of reach with a nervous smile.

“Want another round of it, do you?” he asked with only desultory menace.

“Sure, I’m willing to trade for it.”

That clearly confused him, but he still restrained the other rough-looking boys around him. Seven Gods he was a handsome boy from up close.

“I mean, I want to learn to fight,” she clarified.

“What a Keep server girl want with fighting?” he asked, bemused.

“What’s it to you if I can trade?” she returned.

His companions began to take offense on their leader’s behalf but again he motioned them to stillness. “Alright server, what can you deal?”

“My father is the mastersmith of the Forge of Meikhei. I can trade good steel.”

A surprised silence passed as the urchin gang took in that revelation. Big Kalra cocked his head and said the words for which Eleihas had been waiting, “Prove on, girl.”

In a motion Eleihas had practiced over and over until she could do it with her eyes closed mid-tumble, she produced her knife. She was so nervous the performance still felt jerky and awkward to her, but by their reaction, the boys thought the small flourish well done. They didn’t seem particularly worried, but her esteem in their eyes rose visibly.

Big Kalra, for his part, simply smiled rakishly. “I call that good pay for two tendays.”

Even though she had expected it, his lowball offer sunk her stomach somewhere below her knees. His grin, meanwhile, struck her somewhere else. She clenched her teeth and looked insulted. “This knife is worth a pair of heavies at the least. I should call it good pay for two years of twice a tenday.”

Now he pretended - hopefully it was just pretense - to be insulted. “Your life isn’t worth two eights if I don’t say so. A season.”

“A year and I bring a loaf of bread when I come to see you.”

“Add two eggs and it’s sealed.”

“One, if I can get it. My father is partial to eggs.”

The boy chuckled gutturally, but shrugged. “Alright. Hand over the cutter, then. I'm on to inspect it first, a course.”

“I'm not such a fool,” she said.

“You don’t trust me?” he asked, smiling wickedly.

“Should I?” she asked, trying to match his expression.

It seemed to amuse him. “I swear on the Stranger, so’s he cut me strings if I forswear.”

“I swear on the Soldier,” she added, and some of the boys laughed. She clenched her jaw and glared. Big Kalra merely looked curious, then held out his hand.

Still glaring at the others, she placed the fine knife’s hilt in his curiously delicate-looking hands.

He examined it briefly, weighing it in his hand. The other boys edged away in anticipation of Kalra's ensuing trial. Watching him spin the flashing blade through a stupendous succession of different grips, jabs and slashes, Eleihas conceived a sense of longing – she wasn't quite sure for what, exactly. When he finished, he looked up at her again where she still stood. “Are you simple? Don’t you know better than trusting an orphan?”

“How could I not trust my own father?” she said defiantly, to the confusion of his whole set. But comprehension dawned in Kalra’s eyes after a brief moment, and he smiled with roguish appreciation. “I’ll meet you tomorrow after the night bell,” Eleihas dared.

“It isn’t safe here at darktime,” he said seriously.

“Then where?” she asked.

“Meet me ahind the Broken Lantern. If all’s well, there’ll be a tart a-called Eleihas afront the taproom and she'll point you.”

Eleihas winced. Common names had their drawbacks. “I’ll be there, then. As a last item...” she froze her reach into her pocket when the pack of urchins stiffened with suspicion. “Uh. It’s just a couple wedges of cheese for your brother, Kalra. I promised him.”

For some reason this dissolved them into laughter, which, she supposed, was better than being stabbed to death and left in the street, but still left her feeling dangerously ignorant. Fortunately, Big Kalra took mercy on her.

“Half the boys these parts be me brothers, even the ones as ain’t. I know the one, although. Bistas be he name and the lucky one’ll have he cheese in place of me point, seeing the deal was good. And, as I sweared, here's the steel. Don't bring it with you, server. Liker to catch a point for it than it going to save you a poke.”

Her finger still came away with traces of blood on it and the lip was definitely swollen. Would Father notice? Eleihas shrugged at that thought - there was little she could do now. Even the prospect of being caught didn’t much dampen her glee: Big Kalra had hit her! Her! She had finally pressed him so hard during sparring that he was obliged to actually strike instead of constantly turning every blow with intimidating elegance. His brothers had looked at her differently afterwards, as if she was finally a presence in her own right rather than a wisp that their leader might dispel at any moment. She wondered how many of them had never been able to win the same honor.

The spread of her smile sprang to her attention as it cracked the incipient scab on her split lip and renewed the taste of blood in her mouth. She briefly considered claiming that she’d fallen and split her lip, but her father was damnably good at spotting her lies and he’d probably make her show her arms which were, of course, bruised and swollen in places. She licked her lip unconsciously as she walked, considering.

The Fortunately she had come back before he had finished one of his long days at the forge. if and she woke up early enough she might be able to get eggs and a loaf before he stirred. She didn’t bother to even heat her water bucket before she washed for bed, but the cold water couldn’t douse warm thoughts of the handsome young rogue that weren’t at all martial once she was under the covers.
“Your name is Eleihas too, eh? Funny.” The tart grinned to expose several pewter teeth of passable quality.

“Yes. Eleihas at'Dubei,” she answered, moving to grasp wrists. The woman didn't seem to recognize the motion, though, so the girl dropped her arm awkwardly.

“Well, Eleihas at'Dubei, Big Kalra ain't around so early. I'll send a boy to let he know you're here.”

“Oh.” Eleihas was disappointed and anxious, standing in Lowside Row with a loaf of bread and two eggs at nighttime.

The older Eleihas read the younger's anxiety and took pity. “Eh, it's early. Come on in, girl.”

“I don't know, Eleihas,” Dubei's daughter answered nervously, not liking the look of the place.

“You ain't on to worry, lass, we'll put it about you're Kalra's business. Even the bigger bully men give he space, you know. And ye may as well call me 'Eli.' Less confusing with us both having the same name, and anyway it's as most people do.”

Once inside, Eleihas' apprehensions were confirmed, with a number of rough-looking men leering at her with bloodshot eyes through the dingy common room. “New drab, Eli? Not much to look at.”

“Snap up your looking-balls, limpwick,” Eli/Eleihas shot back, “This here's Eleihas at'Dubei and she's a respectable server as got business wi' Kalra.”

That occasioned another round of snickers as Eli shepherded Eleihas through a miasma redolent of strong spirits and toward the back. “Respectable, sure. Business w'Kalra!” they were all laughing now. Eli smacked a hand away and boxed the offender smartly below the ear. The tart wasn't a particularly big woman, but the jab told well enough to dissuade any other half-sprung patrons from trying her temper as they passed.

Past the kitchen they came to the stairs and a smaller room with a group of almost pretty women sitting around a table with little cups of clear liquid that Eleihas didn't mistake for water.

“Eh, what's this?” asked a woman of indeterminate age who must have been gorgeous before years of hard liquor had leached away much of her comeliness.

“Bidi, this is Eleihas at'Dubei, who's here to see Kalra.”

Bidi cackled, “You sure, girl? Big Kalra don't lay wit' just any bit, yer know.”

“Too tall,” criticized one.

“No bosom, brows like a regular leatherhand and spotty” added another.

“Don't look like she got a waist, neither.”

“Button your holes and be polite,” Eli broke in, “She ain't got that sort to do wit' Kalra.”

“Oh, well, if you was, we wouldn't blame yer,” Bidi told Eleihas, somewhat unconvincingly. Nevetheless, she patted the space next to her on the bench and offered her a cup of their noxious brew, which Eleihas declined with a mighty effort not to wrinkle her nose. “Plenty as should know better set they cap at he. Well, I won't ask ye what as don't concern us, but beware that bit of man.”

“Thank you for the warning, but I wouldn't even dream of... that,” Eleihas lied.

Bidi winked. “Course not. Squeaky, get this girl a mug of amber for me.”

A mousy woman who hadn't said anything yet hopped up and went into the tavern's front room, ignoring Eleihas' protests. Happily, the mug proved to be passably clean and the ale itself of fair quality.

“Alright, the girls'll look out for ye till Kalra gets here, lass. I've got to get out front again so the coinies know where to go. Been nice to meet ye, Eleihas.”

“You too, Eli,” Eleihas told her, a little apprehensive to be left alone with the gaggle of tipsy prostitutes.

“Don't worry, dear, Eleihas wouldn't leave you with a shabby set. She's alls-fair with the coinies she hooks for us, a course, but she's honest as the bur's penny to her sisters.”

Their visitor blinked, catching the gist of Bidi's dialect but compulsively driven to understand what all the phrases meant.

“Yeah, she's a true one, as front girls go. She has a regular man and doesn't try to poach the brass,” said another woman whose name Eleihas hadn't heard.

“Talei means that Eli plays fair when bringing in the coinies. Some as play favors or expect a girl to pay to get the fellows with heavier purses, ye see,” explained Bursa.

“Oh,” Eleihas said, trying unsuccessfully to be nonchalant.

“You want something to eat?” Bursa asked her, “The Lantern's cold ordinary ain't bad, so's you get it early.”

“I ate before I came,” she lied again, because she didn't want to explain why she preferred the shop biscuit in her pocket over anything issuing from the Broken Lantern's kitchen.

“She's got a whole loaf of bread,” Squeaky pointed out. “A couple eggs, too.”

“Squeaky, you're eight parts short a coin,” Talei said, shaking her head. “Those are for Big Kalra, you know.”

Squeaky didn't seem to even notice the insult, simply saying, “I guess that makes sense. Big Kalra is nice.”

Talei opened her mouth to say something exasperated but Bidi instead launched into a long and foul-mouthed complaint about the new baker that had the others in gales of laughter and Eleihas totally lost.

The conversation had segued to an intriguing but almost impenetrable survey of – as far as their visitor could tell – tradesmen's sexual peccadillos when a small girl entered to announce that Kalra had arrived. Eleihas bowed her way out with mixed relief and regret.
“Two eggs?” he asked when she reached the intersection of three alleyways which seemed to serve as a meeting place for young hooligans of whom Kalra was chief.

“I was lucky; there was a heavy lay in the henhouse today.” She clasped wrists with him in greeting.

“So, boys, she name is Eleihas,” he announced to his audience. Some of the boys snickered.

“Eleihas at'Dubei,” she said, lifting her chin a little. “My father is mastersmith of the Buran Forge.”

“Likes we're on to call she lady,” one of the boys said contemptuously.

“Can't call ugly bits like that lady,” jumped in another.

A third, a disturbing individual whose teeth were already starting to rot said something a great deal cruder that Eleihas understood well enough to respond with her fists. She got one good hit in, but though he stumbled back, it seemed to do little more than anger him. Within a few seconds she had her pushed against the wall with her arm twisted behind her, murmuring threats through gritted teeth. She scrambled to get at the little stiletto she'd hidden in her waistband, but before she could draw it the boy at her back had let go of her hand and substituted yelps of pain in place of threats.

“Alright, you meikhfa rat turd,” Kalra said, sounding calm, “Eleihas at'Dubei is me guest. Those were me eggs you just broke. That's me bread in the dirt.”

“Sorry!” the boy yelped, on his knee with his hand twisted painfully in Kalra's grip. “I'm sorry!”

“You's also stupid. She had a point in she britches. Fancy being a cripple? Eleihas, put a hole in him as you fancy.”

“I weren't in the way to kill her!” the boy protested.

“No, but you said you was in the way to poke her, so I think she's on to poke you. Come here, Eleihas, make him leak.”

She'd regained her feet and retrieved the blade by then, and by the way the other boys stood back she could tell that they didn't intend to involve themselves. It was just the three of them, Big Kalra with a dangerous smile stretching his face, his body oriented toward Eleihas but his eyes turned to transfix the brown-toothed boy.

“I don't want to, Kalra,” she said, still angry but unable to imagine stabbing a boy who was no longer attacking her.

“I knowed it. Ye were on to do it a few count back, though. I saw your fingers ont. So next time, I'll let you make him leak. And then I'm on to take my own action, too, because this is disrespect. Understand, Spotty?” He directed the last two words at the boy with bad teeth.

“Sure, Big Kalra.”

“And you all?”

A chorus of assent ensued, voices variously pleased and worried, and Kalra seemed satisfied, but she still felt very precarious, and the stupidity of what she'd done was crushingly obvious now.
“You got big hands for a girl.

“How do you squeak out the Keep with naught seeing?” Big Kalra asked with languid idleness, possibly drunk, Eleihas thought. He seemed more relaxed than she’d ever known him; the tightly wound alertness that was usually just beneath the surface seemed to have receded considerably, though even now she didn’t think he was quite as relaxed as he seemed.

Certainly she wasn’t; it was well known that this is where he brought girls to lay with them. Eleihas felt at the surprisingly clean blankets on which she sat and wondered if she would ever sleep there. Would the others assume that was what they were doing in here? She blushed with guilty pleasure at the thought. Big Kalra was, she thought, absolutely exquisite. In the darkness, of course, she couldn’t see the very slightly broken nose that gave a rugged sort of relief to an otherwise achingly fine visage nor the lips about which she had dreamt on more than one occasion. He was so pretty that very handsome girls - girls almost as beautiful as Maleris, she thought a little wistfully - vied for his company, yet tonight he had invited her to stay with him awhile. Some small portion of her that the prudish might call “good sense” told her that she was being very foolish but the much greater part hoped giddily that at any moment his dextrous hands would stray to her.

“A secret, eh? Fair’s it is,” he said, chuckling as if he’d been caught in a minor indiscretion. Truthfully she had only been distracted but now that she considered, she realized that her knowledge of ways to avoid the guards was worth a great deal to certain people. “You’re a right clever girl, you know? Cannier than you’d think of a server, famous smart teikh or no. Amazing quick hand in a sticks and bricks question, too, but I'm not on to say it: all's know it well enough.”

Perhaps he didn’t strictly need to say it, but he had and now she was giddily hopeful that a proposition was coming. Seven Gods, please send her such luck.

“Eleihas,” he began with uncharacteristic hesitation and using her full name as he rarely did, “I was thinking...” Here he stopped and her heart pounded. Was he uncertain of her, of all people? Big Kalra, her senior by probably two years and dozens, maybe scores of liaisons?

“Ask for anything,” she said, trying to tame the bald urgency in her voice and the tension in the hand she used to capture his.

After a pause, he continued. “Well, what I’m on to say is that I don’t really have proper speech and I were hoping to learn the pretty Arimisan that you can speak like a right noble.”

Her disappointment was immense and immediate, but his diffidence and vulnerability made her desire even more to seize him in an embrace and, well, see what followed. She was on the point of rolling bodily onto him when he withdrew his hand and began speaking again, hastily.

“You aren’t on to do it or nothing. I just ask as we’re mates, like.” She heard him stand up - another disappointment, but she supposed her silence might seem disapproving.

“Of course, Kal. Anything.” She said it softly, knowing the moment had passed beyond recovery, if there had even been one in any mind besides her own. Damn boys and their inscrutability.

“I were supposing we could come here atimes - none interrupt me when I got company - and practice talking like witty cads without me other mates making fun. I'm not on t'be a court heavy, but a dockyard tongue makes a dockyard life, an I ain't on to be that for , I hope.” He sounded embarrassed.

“Of course, of course. We could start now, if you like,” she said.

“For trues? Alright, then,” he said, receding back to what passed for relaxed in such a wary soul.

It wasn’t until the second tenday that she started to notice the resentful glances and the upturned noses of young women who had been heretofore tolerant of the odd duck in their midst, frequently outright kind as if to a little sister. Most of a season passed and she still couldn’t figure the source of the change until Bursa, the kindest of them all, beckoned to her one day when they spotted one-another at the Fifthday market.

“Hi Bursa,” she said tentatively as she reached earshot range in the cacophony of haggling.

“Eleihas,” Bursa said in a reproving tone, “I thought you was smarter than to get into all that. You think you’s to be different than all the rest?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Eleihas said, though she suspected that it had to do with whatever had soured her to the taste of the young women of the lower docks and brothels.

“You’re a fool or a liar, then,” Bursa said crossly. “You think that Kalra hasn’t kicked you from his bed yet because you’re different than the rest of us. I ain't went to think you proud because you’re a rich Keep server, but I wonders was I too kind.”

Eleihas could feel herself blushing; she’d almost forgotten how it must look to the others. But Kalra still bedded women as he had, did he not? She assumed so, though she hadn’t asked or wanted to know.

“Does he lay with anyone else?” Eleihas asked, realizing how it sounded only after it was out of her mouth and Bursa recoiled as if struck.

“Seven gods ye arrogant...” Bursa whirled without finishing and strode angrily away.

At one level Eleihas was mortified that she had accidentally confirmed the fiction that she and Kalra were fornicating. Ascendant, however, was the revival of her hope that Kalra might harbor some well-hidden interest in her. After all, who had ever heard of Big Kalra lacking for female company? Yet Bursa wouldn’t have taken her question as rhetorical if Kalra was meeting with other women.